After finalizing my plastic spacers I got some good wind yesterday (force 5-6). A guy I know on the beach recommended me to downhaul as much as possible so that the sail could "breath". Wow. It was incredibly fast... And makes a fantastic sound when popping the cams (due to more pressure on them). I had one or two really bad crashes at full speed due to my nose pointing into chop but other than that I'm super happy with the sail now.

Thanks for helping get the most out of this sail.

25th March 2010 06:12 PM

mark h

Hi, yep, its normal. The material is reinforced in that area so it wont damage it, but it will leave an indentation on the material.

25th March 2010 10:55 AM

agrelon

Quote:

Originally Posted by mark h

Good result)

I've found a super stiff plastic out of which I'm going to make my permanent spacers. It's about 7mm thick. I'll post some photos of my final spacers once they're complete.

One question about the Ram: I found it weird that the cams press directly against the sail (once slid on the batten) ie. there is no load spreading spacer or nothing and the result is that the cam seems to dig in a bit... Is this normal/same on the warps? (I'm not sure as I bought the sail 2nd hand)

Thanks

22nd March 2010 05:11 PM

mark h

Good result)

22nd March 2010 08:54 AM

agrelon

I used my prototype spacers this morning, and added much more tension to the lower three battens. Result: the lower vertical creases came out and the sail ins much deeper for the same amount of downhaul! I'm going to make a more sturday version of these prototype spacers for long term use and the 3rd batten from the top still needs some tensioning (different sized allen key so couldn't fix it today) to remove some sleight vertical creases.

The luff sleeve is also more tight now, so I'm happy with the results so far. Thanks again for your advice.

21st March 2010 09:28 PM

mark h

Hi Agrelon
The large spacers should be about a 1/2 cm thick and a medium spacer about 1/4cm thick. North and Neil pryde do spacer kits so you might be able to get some mail order. They made in a shape so they sit perfect on the battens. If you do make them, use a soft plastic so that it does not cut or wear out the batten pocket.

Once the spacers are on, you should be able to apply more batten tension to get rid of those wrinkles.

21st March 2010 10:21 AM

agrelon

Hi Mark H,

Thanks for this detailed answer! When I bought the sail (2nd hand) it didn't come with any spacers I shall have to make some. According to you, roughly how much spacing do two large spacers and one normal spacer provide in mm?

I've already put a bit of batten tension on the lower battens but failed to remove the vertical wrinkles in my sail totally. I watched a tuning video online which said that there is no way to break the sail by overtensioning (though in time the sail panels might stretch) so I'm going to try to apply a bit more. I found it annoying that the tensioners use 2 different allen key sizes, though.

The mast is not NS RDM, unfortunately, it's a Gulftech. I think the bend curve works quite well with the mast as I tried another mast, this time 400, and the leech of the sail was lot less defined, although rigging was easier.

I look forward to trying this new setup soon,

Thanks.

20th March 2010 10:54 PM

mark h

Hi Agrelon
Ideal mast is the NS drop-shape. But you should be able to use an RDM with some ok results. Is it a North RDM?

You will need to use two large spacers on the bottom two cams, and one spacer on the top two cams. Add loads of tension to the bottom two battens, medium tension to the next batten and neutral tension to the last batten. This will give you max power and stability.

For max top-end speed, downhaul about 1 or 2 cm past the VTS dot. This will allow the leech to twist/exhaust power to get higher speeds (much higher speeds). It will also feel much lighter in the hands and you will be able to take it out in much stronger winds to gain extra KPH. Cams will be harder to rotate, but they will pop around 20 meters or so into the new tack.

Dont worry about the lack of profile, all past and current Warps, Daytona's and Rams set flat c/w over race sails. The profile is more gradual than others and the power comes from further back in sail. If you dont like speeding on the fin, you may need to move the mast base forward 1 or 2cm more than normal.

Hope this helps

20th March 2010 01:13 PM

agrelon

North Ram F8 5.8m: Optimal Rigging

Hi all,

I've had this sail for a while and have a question about how to rig this sail optimally.

I'm rigging it on a 430 RDM mast (100% carbon) and I think I may need some spacers on the cams to compensate for the reduced diameter of the mast. This is because when I downhaul the sail to the point where the leech is loose to the indicated mark on the sail, the profile of the sail is very flat. I'm thinking that with some spacers I can get a deeper draft in the sail with the same amount of flapping leech.

Would this be the case?

Also, would this make the sail faster?

I've read somewhere that for optimal top end speed the sail needs to be downhauled to the max. Is this the case?

It's hard for me to figure out the best tuning for this sail as I get at best 1 good wind day a week, with the wind being very gusty.

Any comments are appreciated, thanks.(Btw, I've never had any issues with cam rotation, they rotate well no matter the downhaul setting and I'm running all 4 cams)